Blue Wisteria - Prologue and Introduction

I pull the tarp out of the way and walk through. “Yeah, I’m not sure. I think they’re building condos or something.”

“Nah, too much stone. It’s probably going to be a bank or a store.”

“What, are you an architect now?”

“Maybe. So what’s the deal, man? Why’d you bring me out here?”

“One second. I need to check that we’re really alone.” I search around, cautiously, carefully. I have to be sure. Not for the first time, I wonder if this is a good idea or not. I glance back at Tyler.

He grins. “Satisfied? Nobody’s here, dude. Not this late.”

“I had to know, Ty.” I try to smile back, but it’s very artificial. “Look, what I’m about to tell you is top secret, okay? Nobody else can know about it. It stays here.”

“I get it, I get it. Secret.” His grin fades slightly. “Come on, I wouldn’t tell anybody your secrets. I’m not an asshole.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, sure, I promise.”

I sigh in relief. “Thanks. I do trust you, Ty. It’s just, you know… this is a big deal for me.”

“Wister, come on. How long are you going to build the suspense?”

My heart beats quickly. “Okay. Here goes…” I take a deep breath. “I want to be a girl.”

Tyler keeps grinning. “…okay?”

I feel a surge of relief. “You’re cool with it?”

“Yeah, yeah, knock it off. What did you really want to tell me?”

The relief vanishes instantly. “No, Tyler, I’m not kidding.”

He stares at me, and his pleasant expression melts into confusion and shock. “What?”

“I want to be a girl. I [i]am[/i] a girl, sort of.”

“No you’re not.” He states it so simply. He doesn’t understand.

“Well, I’m not a boy. I hate being a boy. I hate my body.”

“Stop it, Wister.”

“No, this is the truth, and I need you to hear it. I want to be a girl. I look at other girls and I feel envious, like, I just want to look like them, like a normal-“

“Wister! Shut up!” He shouts, and the loudness of it catches me off guard. He blinks. “…sorry. But you’re saying some weird shit. You’re a guy, Wister. How do you not get that?”

“But I don’t [i]want[/i] to be a guy.”

“Too fucking bad! Deal with it.” He eyes me, like he’s hurt, like he’s not sure what to think.

I feel the temptation to take it back, to pretend I was joking. But I have to do this. I have to tell him. He’s my cousin - he’s my [i]friend.[/i] “Tyler, please try to understand. I can’t stay like this, I can’t keep acting like everything’s okay. It’s not. I’m a girl with a boy body, and it’s killing me.”

For some reason, that makes him angry. “What the hell is your problem, Wister?”

“I just told you what my problem is, Ty.”

“Why? Why do you want to be a girl?” Suddenly he pulls away. “…are you gay?”

“Huh? I… I don’t know. I like guys, I think. Why?”

He immediately turns and starts to leave, pulling the tarp aside. “I can’t listen to this bullshit anymore.”

“Hey, come on, man. Don’t leave it like this.” I reach out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t [i]touch[/i] me!” Suddenly, immediately, I’m on the ground, and he’s standing over me, eyes wide, fist raised.

I put a hand to my eye, where he’d hit me. It hurts, bad. “Fuck.” I breathe. “Why?”

He looks down at his hand, surprised. “I - I didn’t mean to…” He shakes his head, then furrows his brow. “No. It’s not my fault. You told me that crazy shit about liking boys and wanting to be a girl, and then you touch me? You need help, Wister. LIke, professional help.”

[i]“I’m[/i] the one who needs help?” I sit up. [i]“You[/i] punched me in the [i]eye.”[/i]

“Sorry.” He does look sorry, too. Scared, hurt, even ashamed. He offers a hand, and pulls me up. “I’ll talk to your parents, okay? We’ll get you help. See a doctor, maybe. Get you back to normal.”

“No!” I yank his arm, and he falls to the ground. He scrambles to pull himself up, but I don’t let go of his arm. “You can’t. You can’t tell anyone. You [i]promised[/i] you wouldn’t.”

“You didn’t tell me it was going to be something like this.”

“It doesn’t matter!” I stare him in the eyes. “You can’t tell them. Mom won’t get it. She’ll freak. She’ll send me away, or lock me in my room.”

“Wister, you sound like a crazy person.” He tries to get away. I don’t let him. “Let me go.”

“No. I’m not going to let you tell them.”

“Let go of my arm, Wister. Now.”

“You promise not to tell them?”

“No, Wister. I’m not going to let you live your life believing in some delusion. You’re not a girl. Don’t you understand? No one’s ever going to see you that way.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But you can’t tell mom and dad.”

“I can and I will.” He gives a halfhearted attempt at a smile. “Hey, we can tell them together, if you’d like.”

“It’s not happening, Tyler.”

Something about the way I say that makes him go quiet. He looks down at the grip I have on his arm. “Last chance, Wister. Let go.”

“No.”

He punches at my shoulder. I wince in pain, but I don’t loosen my grip. He hits me again, hard.

“Stop it.”

“You’re the one who’s making this difficult, dude.” He goes to punch me again, but I reach out and grab his other arm. He slams his forehead into mine, and it dazes me. He yanks his arms away and rushes to get up. I grab his ankle and he falls on his front, hard. “Fuck!” He coughs.

I throw myself over him and hold him down. “You’re not telling my parents. Ever.”

“What’s your fucking problem?!” He struggles, tries to break my hold. I don’t let him. He bites my fingers, and the pain makes me pull it away. He twists around and throws me off, standing up as quickly as he can. I leap up and slam him against the wall. A loose brick tumbles from above and almost hits him, but he just barely dodges out of the way. He stares at the brick, then stares at me. “You could have just killed me.” His expression is blank. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“I won’t let you tell my par-“

With one movement, he picks up the brick and slams it into my face - into my eye. Color and light bursts in flashes as my vision falls apart. I fall back onto the ground, feeling like I might throw up. I try to stand, but vertigo overwhelms me. I grab onto the wall and try to feel my way up, only to feel more pain. I sluggishly recognize that he’s punched me in the eye again. “…Ty…” I groan. “Please…”

“Don’t say another fucking word, Wister. I thought you were my friend. You’re not. I’m not sure [i]what[/i] you are, except that you’re a freak. A murderous, delusional freak.”

“I wasn’t… I didn’t…” I feel sleepy and lightheaded as I push the words out. I try to open my eyes, but they’re already open. I just can’t see out of them.

He leans down. “You stay away from me, freak. You stay away from my family.” He slams his fist into my eye again, and everything goes black, everything is slow, jelly-like pain.

Tyler’s words echo in my head, reverberating, building in volume, until they’re so loud I can’t think.

~

I woke up, heart beating quickly. Another dream of Tyler. The day my life fell apart. That part of the dream wasn’t anything new, wasn’t anything interesting. But there was more, this time. A man on a bridge, talking about karma and guardian angels. Was it real? It felt real. But it couldn’t be, clearly. That man had had black eyes.

I groaned, rubbing my own eye. I only had the one, now. It had been months since Tyler had destroyed the other, months since he’d outed me. I brushed my finger over the scars he’d left behind, wincing slightly in pain. I glanced at my bedside table, where my eyepatch rested. I barely ever wore the damn thing. I don’t know if it was due to some misplaced sense of pride, or if it was out of hopeless resignation.

Tyler had been right, in the end. I was a freak. I often wondered whether he’d been right when he said it at the time, or if he’d made me into one with a brick. Either way, the results were the same.

I sat up, still groggy. I heard knocking at the door, and then a loud voice.

“Yo, Wister. You up?”

“Yeah, Orc. I’ll be there in a moment.” I blinked my eye, trying to clear my vision, and then I set about getting up. I didn’t spend much time on it. I threw on some clothes from my dresser and walked over to the door, opening it without ceremony. “What’s up?”

“Dad’s going to drive us to school today. You ready?” Orchid looked me over. “Didn’t you wear those same clothes yesterday?”

“Maybe. Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” She shrugged. “You know, if you want to borrow a dress or a skirt or something, you can borrow one of mine. I don’t mind.”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“No! Of course not.” She shook her head. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Don’t bother.” I looked at the floor.

“You look so fucking miserable all of the time, man.” She mumbled, then looked guilty. “Oh, shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a-“

“When does dad want to leave?” I interrupted her.

“Whenever you’re ready, I guess.”

I lightly pushed her aside and started walking down the stairs. She followed slightly behind me. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, I could hear Dad talking from the dining room, obviously on a phone. Half of a conversation played out as we made our way over. His back was to us, and he clearly didn’t realize we were there.

”…that’s not going to change. He - she’s my daughter. I don’t care. No. Are you sure?” He paused. “Then maybe it’s for the best that we don’t attend Thanksgiving this year.” He turned slightly, noticing us. “I have to go, Mother. Goodbye.” He hung up. “Hey, sleepyhead. Are you ready to go?”

I nodded.

“Really? Then where’s your bag?” He raised an eyebrow, “I assume that your classes still require textbooks.”

“Whatever.”

“Orchid, would you please go get Wister’s books for him?” He coughed. “Sorry, for her?”

“Sure.” Orchid gave me a glance, then turned and went back up towards my room.

“How are you feeling, sweetie?” He’d been trying to give me more feminine nicknames. He tried so hard to make me feel better, even after the hell I’d put him through just by existing. My gaze drifted to a small picture on the wall. Mom. How long had it been since she’d gone? My fault, of course, being the broken freak that I was.

“I feel fine.” I lied.

He gave me a small, awkward hug. “I love you. Always remember that.” He was pushing himself to be affectionate, to show me the same kind of love he would have shown a daughter. It was so fake. Not empty, but still fake.

“Love you too.” I said, my voice almost monotone.

He let me go after a few moments. Orchid came back shortly after, and we moved into the car. The trip was a quiet one. Orchid looked my way every so often, but never met my eyes when I looked back at her. She’d used to be so loud, so confident. She still was, sometimes, but not around me. She didn’t know how to act, what to say or what not to say.

How miserable my family had become, because of me. My mind went to the place it always went: the bridge. I’d been ready, last night. No doubts. No qualms. A world without me would be a better world, a happier world, for those I was leaving behind. Why hadn’t I done it?

The image of the man with the black eyes flickered across my mind. It was a dream, though. Of course it was. But the things the black-eyed man had said lingered. He’d promised hope, near the end, but I couldn’t remember much after that.

Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I pushed it from my mind. Tonight, then, is when I’d visit the bridge. I wouldn’t need to prepare a note. Anyone who knew me would know why I did it. It would be obvious.

We arrived at school fairly quickly. I gave Orchid and Dad polite goodbyes, got out of the car, and wandered into class. Algebra. What a joke. Math had always been easy for me. I didn’t care enough to pay attention, though. I just did what I usually did in my classes: I rested my head on my hand and zoned out.

The classes passed by so slowly, but they did end. Eventually, recess came around, and my mood brightened a bit. I made my way over to our table. Ikram waved to me, smiling. “Yo, Princess. What’s up?”

“Not much, ikky.” I smiled, sitting down. “How about you?”

“Oh, there are a few things.” He pointed. “There’s one. Check it out.”

I turned, looking around. I didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy. “Check what out?”

“Your ex.”

I looked again. Sure enough, there was Raven, eating and laughing with a friend. “What about her?”

“See that girl she’s with?” He leaned in. “That’s her girlfriend.”

“No fucking way.”

“Oh, there’s a fucking way. I spotted them kissing outside yesterday.”

“Huh.” I glanced at the two of them. “Well, good for her, I guess.”

“Yeah, and according to Paolo, she’s showing up to GSA as an out-and-proud lesbian. Apparently, Princess, you’re a gateway drug.”

“Ha. You dork.” I poked him softly in the shoulder. He chuckled.